Phase what? And fiddling about ....
Could you explain please the meaning of 'phase coherent'. Conversely, what, I wonder, is the opposite?
Would this phase coherence only be detectable with specialist measuring equipment or could the casual listener (i.e. me) 100% detect such a speaker from mere listening? Or only 80% of the time? Or 50/50? Assuming that this phase thing was mandated as the most important aspect of the design, would any compromises have to be accepted elsewhere in the design? What would they be? Coloration? Repeatability? Distortion? Off axis response? Naturalness? Bass? Could this be (another) fixation on just one corner of the design jigsaw forgetting that what matters is not how the painting was done but what it looks like from a distance - or in loudspeaker terms, how it sounds overall?
A look across our customer base reminds me that we are a band of unconventional mavericks who eschew dogma and admire pragmatism and free thinking The extreme irony is that our products look conventional and sound good because they ignore current convention. Long may it continue!
P.S. As Dudley Harwood (Harbeth's founder, ex-BBC research engineer) is reported to have replied to someone who asked him about the technical core of his speaker design philosophy .... "You just fiddle about until they sound right". The truest words spoken on the subject of loudspeaker design - by someone who really did know the subject inside out!
Alan A. Shaw
Harbeth Audio UK